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A Good Day to Die Hard More at IMDbPro »

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284 out of 346 people found the following review useful:
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but this is terrible., 13 February 2013

Author: Jaho Koo (jahokoo94@gmail.com) from South Korea

So what did everyone do as soon as they heard John Moore was directing the next Die Hard film? Look up his filmography and see titles like the remake of Omen and Max Payne. And now, sadly, A Good Day to Die Hard will join Moore's list of bad films, because it really is BAD.

As much as I wanted to like this movie, I just couldn't; not even as a Die Hard fan (no pun intended).

FIRST, let's look at the selling point. We're promised one thing and that is a larger scale than that of the last movie. You see, the first Die Hard took place in a plaza. The second one took place in an airport. The third was in New York, and the fourth was in the entire nation of USA. So logically, Die Hard 5 was going to go international. Ironically, A Good Day to Die Hard feels like the smallest film out of the five. Why? Because the whole movie feels like one action- forced chase. I say action-forced, because everything is so over-the-top to the point where there is no rise of tension, but rather endless pandemonium from start to finish. No emotional investment, no excitement. Everything just LOOKS grandiose and doesn't feel like anything to that magnitude. Besides, unlike the previous Die Hard movies, the terrorist threats in this movie never get carried out. Everything is just a battle to prevent the threat. I would also argue that the shorter running time is a sign of laziness and a factor to why the movie feels so insignificant.

My other big problem is that the movie is repetitive and boring. The one-liners aren't clever (by the way, there was no "Yippee Ki-Yay, mother****er" delivered. EDIT: some people have claimed to have heard it, I haven't). The jokes aren't funny. The bad family relationship story is getting really tiresome, especially when Die Hard 4 focused primarily on the father-daughter relationship. Speaking of which, the new McClane is really unlikable. Unlike Lucy McClane who just came off as a brat, Jack McClane is introduced pulling a gun on his father. Why would we ever like this kid, especially when we've known and loved Bruce Willis' character for four movies?

I can't speak much about the "villain" (played by Radivoje Bukvić) without spoiling the movie, but all I have to say is that he has little to no part in the whole movie. The evil Russian comes off as a cliché, anti-American terrorist, and he possesses and carries out no threat. I'm dying to talk about the story here, but let's just say it has a really stupid ending.

In an attempt to end the review on a more positive note, I'd like to say that the movie does have some "oh sh*t" moments that can be fun to watch. However, I'd stay clear out of this one (unless you're a Die Hard fan).

211 out of 245 people found the following review useful:
What on earth have they done to John McClane?!, 14 February 2013

Author: del91 from Penang, Malaysia / Chicago, USA

I am heartbroken.

It's a sad day to say this, but it has to be said: "A Good Day to Die Hard" is a dud. The fifth instalment in the beloved "Die Hard" saga ends up as the worst of the series so far; it falters thanks to a weak characterization, even weaker screen writing, lack of worthy villains, absurd action sequences and incoherent direction. You can bet this movie will be mentioned in the same sentence with "Rocky V", "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace", "Speed 2: Cruise Control", "Die Another Day" and "Batman & Robin". Not even the R-rating and the return of the famous "Yippie ki yay" line in full can save this one.

As much as I love action movies, I like mine with a side of plot and character, of which this film fails at. John McClane, one of my favorite film characters of all time, is given a horrendous treatment no beloved character should ever be given: relegated to a sidekick. This is HIS movie, not his son's! From the start he is inexplicably thrust into Russia with no back story of how the previous films over the years have shaped his character now - a key trait that was visible in the previous four films. He is reduced to a wise-cracking action supercop, and even his wisecracks are weak. However, Bruce Willis, bless him, is still McClane without a doubt, as he dishes out the bad guys with weathered-out cynicism in his eyes. He still has it in him, and in no way it is his fault that this movie turned out to be near-crap.

Rather, writer Skip Woods and director John Moore are to blame. Woods clearly missed the whole point of McClane's essence and likability - he is a vulnerable human - an everyday Joe who only stops the bad guys when "there's no one else that can do it". He is a reluctant hero in the first four films, he can get seriously wounded, as he is up against worthy adversaries that are cool, calculative and almost one step ahead of him. Here, McClane, in the opening car chase, and immediately causes mass vehicular damage just to stop thugs from attacking his son, shows no signs of vulnerability (after TWO major car crashes), and has no qualms about killing the bad guys wherever they pop up here. His son Jack (Jai Courtney), filling in for McClane's sidekick, has certain charisma and shows a few glimpses of character development in McClane but it is cut short by the merciless and absurd action sequences.

A good action movie has to have a good villain. "Die Hard 5" has none. It has three primary villains, all of them forgettable. Nothing with the likes of even Thomas Gabriel or Colonel Stuart (the Gruber Brothers must be smirking right now in hell). They're not intelligent, not menacing, not memorable. They're just dumb, die, and that's it. What was their evil plot? What dastardly deeds do they have? Weapons dealing. Oh the humanity!

The film runs at 97 minutes - the shortest in the series. Why the film was released at this length I don't want to know. Nobody complained about the 2 hour running time for each of the previous four movies. Imagine what a better movie this could've been with those cut scenes added back in.

John Moore directs with the subtlety of a car crash. He smash cuts every scene, puts heavy use of slow motion in the excruciatingly absurd climax, and relies heavily on CGI for most of the action sequences. But like all Die Hard movies, there has to be at least one sensational action sequence, and that is at the film's beginning. The only thing I really enjoyed (in a guilty pleasure sort of way) about the whole movie was a massive, destructive stunt-filled car chase throughout the streets of Moscow. It was an intense and exciting scene. Pity the rest of the movie can't hold up to this sensational chase scene alone, especially the end which essentially turns McClane into The Terminator. If you think the F-35 scene in "Die Hard 4" was absurd, hoo boy, wait until you get a load of this one.

At the very least, there's some competent cinematography from Jonathan Sela and a good, riveting music score from Marco Beltrami, who really knows his stuff when it comes to action, as well as incorporating Michael Kamen's themes into this one. If anything, the music is better than the movie.

There is a 6th (and according to Bruce, final) movie in the works. Here's a no brainer - bring back John McTiernan or Renny Harlin (hell, even Len Wiseman for all I care), and hire a good screenwriter who really delivers the old school action goods. I strongly believe Bruce and McClane can deliver the goods still and ride off into the sunset, instead of falling off his horse here. They just need a better story, better direction, and a more than worthy villain with a respected British actor in the role. The franchise doesn't deserve to die with this. It's too good for that.

Shame on you, John Moore and Skip Woods.

171 out of 210 people found the following review useful:
A Good Day To Die Hard is not so Die Hard, 10 February 2013

Author: movie_star349 from United Kingdom

First off, I am a huge fan of the three first films, the fourth film was alright, but it didn't feel like a Die Hard movie, sadly, this one doesn't either.

A Good Day To Die Hard is a huge mess. No good plot, bad cgi, rushed scenes etc. Only thing I found good was the action. An R rating didn't help this one at all. It almost seems like they tried to make this PG-13 at first, but then changed it to R later because fans were complaining about Live Free or Die Hard's (Aka Die Hard 4.0)'s rating. The movie has PG-13 / 12A violence, and this is disappointing. John Moore could of done so much more with this film, but instead, he messes it up just like he did with Max Payne. Good action, but no good story or character development.

Jai Courtney (who starred in Jack Reacher earlier this year) did well on his part, and I do hope he returns if they are making a 6th one, but I am begging, please get a good director for the 6th one, since Bruce says it will possibly be the last one. Bring McTiernan back, and let him end the series with a huge bang! I am sorry to say this, but the film was not good at all. Being an hard-core Die Hard fan, I suggest that other fans should just let this one pass.

186 out of 245 people found the following review useful:
A Good Day For This Franchise to Die Hard, 13 February 2013

Author: illbebackreviews from Australia

Now, I'm a fan of the first three movies. I love them really a lot, especially the original but I also love the 3rd installment, mainly due to the chemistry between Jackson and Willis. That was phenomenal. I could not connect with much in the 4th movie as it was a lot of CGI and made John McClane a superhero who seemed invincible. I wasn't setting my standards high for this one at all as I knew what it could turn out to be, but BOY...This movie really is awful

This movie is based around John McClane who travels to Russia to deal with his son's issues. There, a whole lot of crap begins to happen. This movie attempts to have such a complex plot for a Die Hard whereas the other four were so simple that even the dumbest person could tell what was happening. Its like this director, the guy who made the god awful Max Payne thought that the plot had to be complex for an action film like Die Hard As a regular movie, this movie may NOT be that bad but as a Die Hard movie, it is god awful. I couldn't bear to watch the pain that I went through in this film, why? Because, almost nothing in this movie resembled anything about Die Hard. There was no tone, no tension and as a result, it felt nothing like Die Hard. NOTHING!

The characters really are all awful, with the exception of John McClane who still has a bit of relatability to him. Bruce Willis does a fantastic job in the movie but every other member of the cast really didn't appeal to me. The villain was weak, John's son was uninteresting and a lame addition to the franchise, as if he were there to sell action figures. The story was no fun and the action was all messy This movie does absolutely nothing to resemble the Die Hard films and as such, one of the most anticipated movies of 2013 has fallen down a drain with overuse of CGI, lame characters and plot, uninteresting villain with no real intention and another excuse to make more money out of it.

A Good day to Die Hard is a movie that makes you think that this day is a good day for you to die hard. Do not watch it, pointless action movie that does not resemble Die Hard.

152 out of 182 people found the following review useful:
Here's why it's just so bad ...., 15 February 2013

Author: Andy Smith from Auckland, New Zealand

As a fan of the Die Hard series I feel the need to warn others - Don't waste 97 minutes of your life on this movie! Yes, it really is that bad.

Here's a concise summary of why it's just so bad:

1) John McClane's role is really as a side-kick. Why do this to the big man .... why?

2) The movie lacks a bad guy. Does the movie have people that are bad - of course, but it lacks that McClane v Super-villain factor.

3) There's very little of the Die Hard humour we've all grown to love.

4) The movie parodies the Hans Gruber death sequence - never - never do this.

5) Jai Courtney is terrible. It's hard to discern if it's the role he's been asked to play or him, but either way he come across as a spoiled brat pretending to be Jason Bourne.

6) There's hardly any script - it's as if the script were sandwiched in post production to fit around the bangs and crashes.

7) It's not in the USA. This sounds trivial but it's not - the film just doesn't work outside of its tried and tested environment.

8) The car chase scene - oh my. If you do choose to watch the movie after reading this the good news is that yes, it does eventually end - although it may not feel this way.

So in summary, go plant a tree, play football, go for a walk, in fact - do anything but for the love of all that you hold dear - don't waste your life on this.

169 out of 225 people found the following review useful:
Bruce Willis does what he does best, but this is quite simply one of the worst days of the 'Die Hard' series, 6 February 2013

Author: moviexclusive from Singapore

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Our hearts go out to Bruce Willis. Truly. Six years after successfully restarting the most important character of his entire movie-making career, Willis has to watch it all crash and burn to the ground with this loud, dumb and plain boring fifth chapter, the erroneously-titled 'A Good Day to Live Hard'. Indeed, while its immediate predecessor 'Live Free or Die Hard' banked on a winning formula of old-school heroics with new-age sensibilities, this sequel is firmly stuck in the past – and the worse thing about it is that it would only be passable by the standards of an 80s action movie.

Truth be told, Willis isn't at all the reason why this fails to be a good day for the 'Die Hard' franchise. At the age of 57, the man can still run, carry a mean weapon and kick ass – not to mention his trademark squint and unflappable wisecracking attitude. To put it simply, Willis is still very much the John McClane we've loved in the 80s and 90s and even in the very last movie before this one. But much as Willis tries, he is severely let down by a toxic combination of weak scripting and even weaker directing – the former of which by Skip Woods and the latter by John Moore.

Little in either Woods' or Moore's filmography suggests that they are capable of rising above mediocrity, and this exercise in blandness is proof of that foolish consistency. Let's start with Woods' script, which clearly thinks it can be a 'Mission Impossible' by way of 'Die Hard' – so instead of putting the New York City detective in his home turf, or for that matter, his home country, decides to transport him all the way to the Moscow to wreak havoc. The excuse? To reconnect with his long lost son, Jack, who has apparently turned bad and is now imprisoned in Russia.

Nowhere in the rest of the story does Woods manage to convince us that the change in location is worth the while. Even though we are now well into the 21st century, Woods still seems stuck in the last, so not only are the good guys and bad guys drawn along the lines of Americans and Russians respectively (cue the stereotypes about both nationalities), the plot has something to do with as archaic an institution as Chernobyl. Oh yes, we're back to foiling some nasty Russian's nefarious plan of using the uranium from the site to build weapons of mass destruction.

To make matters worse, Moore is too daft to realise that the very premise in itself strains credibility. How else can you explain why following scene after scene of destruction around the Russian capital, there is no sign of any law and order agency? Are we supposed to believe that the police are too busy or nonchalant to care about some highway chase that decimates pretty much every one of the city's infrastructure it comes across? Or that no authority responds to some helicopter firing round after round after round into a high-rise building? We like that our action movies are escapist, but not when they ignore every shred of common sense simply for expediency.

The fact that we pay attention to these details is in itself telling, for despite a frenetic pace that goes from scene after scene of action, the movie remains a bore. Shots are fired, things get blown up and people get killed from time to time, but at the end of the day, all that action is staged so unimaginatively that it fails to even interest – let alone excite – you. The pacing within each sequence is too monotonous, the sound seems perpetually cranked on loud, and the weaponry – plus an over-used helicopter – just gets tiresome too quickly. As if to compensate for the lack of any genuine thrills, the climax goes over- the-top, but like the rest of the movie, grows so incredulous – especially in slo-mo – that it is just laughable.

Ironically, what passes as John McClane's wise cracks is anything but humorous. Most of McClane's lines are in the context of his father-son relationship with Jack (Jai Courtney), but are hardly witty or engaging. They are also frustratingly repetitive, consisting of John lamenting how Jack nary shows him any respect as a father, or John lamenting how he had expected no more than a vacation in Moscow, or some inane topic like whether they will grow a third hand after stepping into Chernobyl without any protective suit. If John's lines are horrid, the rest of the characters can be no better – and what really takes the cake is when John's nemesis Alik (Rasha Bukvic) talks about how he used to be a pretty good tap dancer whom no one appreciated.

Even more lamentable is how this instalment, if played right, could have been an exciting new page for the 'Die Hard' series, with John passing the baton to his CIA operative of a son Jack. Yet this fifth chapter is easily the worst 'Die Hard' entry and quite possibly might sound the death knell for the franchise. If John McClane had a penchant for landing in the wrong place at the wrong time, then 'A Good Day to Die Hard' is Bruce Willis' unfortunate mistake of being in the wrong movie with the wrong people.

122 out of 149 people found the following review useful:
Shaky Camera ruined it for me, 16 February 2013

Author: heil_cf2 from Canada

I love Die Hard, but shaky camera ruined it for me this time. I can't see because 35% film use shaky camera, 25% out of focus, blurry and 10% rapid zoom ins. Please STOP using Shaky Camera in Films, PLEASE :I am some of those remaining species, who go to watch feature films in cinemas. I never download a movie for free, I pay to netflix. Just doing my part to save the cinema I love. But, some directors and movie making houses, make stupid moves. One of them is use of unwanted, un-needed, shaky camera. So, I want to get my voice heard. If you are a fan, go see the movie, but if you don't like Shaky Camera, then think twice.

101 out of 113 people found the following review useful:
Great action but..., 14 February 2013

Author: michaelberneman from Belgium

Let me start off by saying that like everyone I had a feeling this could go wrong. You have a terrible writer, Skip Woods(even if I enjoyed The A-Team) and a terrible director, John Moore. The people at Fox must be idiots because John Moore has not made one good film, so to trust him with the Die Hard franchise seemed a bad idea. The film has a lot of action if not too much, there isn't any dialog!!!! At 97 minutes it's the shortest one in the series ans it sure feels that way. Every other film in the franchise were longer, they gave you more time to explore the rest of the film. But this one feels so rushed, like okay let's go there , and then here,... The film has no structure. It's like they said "alright guys were gonna make this as fast as possible" Bruce Willis is fine but it's like he doesn't even talk during the whole movie, his chemistry with Jai Courtney is fine. The plot is okay even if you can see the twist coming after 25 minutes. What makes this film still enjoyable is the action even though it's disturbed by shaky-cam, bad editing and bad CGI effects. If they are gonna make another one they should bring back John Mctiernan and make the movie on a smaller scale. Back to basics!! If they make it on a bigger scale than they should make it as good as With a Vengeance.And another thing: You can't drive from Moscow to Chernobyl in a couple of hours!!!!!!

This is by far the worst entry in the franchise

102 out of 124 people found the following review useful:
A Boring Day to Die Hard, 17 February 2013

Author: pauldunlap222 from United States

A "Good Day to Die Hard" is a recycled piece of Hollywood garbage. The director of this, (who is John Moore) ruined the Die Hard series and thinks that in order to make a great movie all you need is cool state of the art guns, action that goes on for way to long, no plot at all, and Bruce Willis, well he's good to go. Well he's very wrong, dead wrong.

The running time for this film is only an hour and a half but it feels like two or three hours. There is absolutely no plot and we have no idea who the main bad guy is or why Bruce Willis and his "son" are fighting them. All we really know is that John Mcclane wants a vacation and for Gods sake could we give him a little break? He's been fighting bad guys nonstop for 4 movies. But of course not.

Somehow we're led to believe he finds his son in the huge city of Moscow and wants to know how is day is. You know how it is usually, boring Dad stuff. But all of a sudden bad guys start shooting them out of nowhere, oh there's also this really old guy who we have no idea why he is with them.

The only little grasp of a plot we get is that Mcclane and his son must protect that old man but they manage to do it pretty easily, and while there dodging huge bullets from a helicopter and many men shooting at them they have a little father son time to themselves where there actually having fun shooting people and dodging bullets . I mean really who woulden't have fun doing that. What a great way to have fun with your son who you haven't seen in years for some reason.

The director wanted this one to be a little comical, but it just drags the movie on even more, Bruce Willis's one liners are horrible and we can barely even hear them and even his one famous line was said at a horrible time, with not much effort, and why may I ask do they always make Bruce Willis invincible in almost every movie, I know people may disagree but he is just getting to old to do movies anymore.

Die Hard was when he was in his prime and that's what made the movie an instant classic. A Good Day to Die Hard is boring, outdated and simply terrible. Die Hard fans, (like me) will be very disappointed.

112 out of 156 people found the following review useful:
A Good Day to Forget They Made This Movie, 13 February 2013

Author: gogeestar from United States

I gave it a 3 to be nice because i'll always have a huge place in my heart for Die Hard, and just because i am loyal to the franchise i will probably buy this piece of junk on DVD when it comes out. Maybe when it comes out on DVD it'll be the extended edition ( seriously it was barely and hour and an a half long) and it'll actually have a story instead of just long drawn out action scenes, one-liners, and dialogue we can actually hear over the load background noise. I use to rank Die Harder as the worse of the franchise, guess who just moved up a step.

The only thing that this movie benefited the franchise is that John's son at the end actually mentions the fact that his name is actually John McClane Jr. not Jake ( in Die Hard (1988) his kids are named Lucy and John Jr.), But not actually explain the name change in the first place.

Much like when they took Oceans 12 to Europe and twisted Indiana Jones into confusing whirlwind that involved aliens, they should have just stayed in America where John McClane belongs. We got enough problems here he could fight.

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